Category Archives:

BDS

Israeli musicians write Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to ask them to cancel their upcoming show in Israel: “Israel prides itself for being tolerant and culturally open, but in fact uses culture to limit divergent narratives and voices, and to whitewash its crimes. When performing in Israel one should always remember that they play in a country that discriminates huge populations of invisible people that have no citizenship and no freedom of movement, and are subject to a separate (military) court system. When performing in Israel one should always remember that they play only in front of the privileged. By choosing not to perform you can send them a strong message.”

Musicians Roger Waters, Thurston Moore and Tunde Adebimpe, poet Michael Rosen, philosopher Judith Butler and political activist Angela Davis are among many high profile figures who have called on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to cancel their concerts in Tel Aviv on November 19 and 20 this year.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed an executive order Monday barring state business with those who support BDS. Saqib Ali, co-founder of Freedom2Boycott and a former Maryland state legislator, said Monday’s executive order shows the hubris of staunchly pro-Israel voices and their disregard for democratic institutions. “You don’t have to be somebody who pays close attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be outraged by this,” Ali told Mondoweiss.

“Considering the impossibility of criticizing Israel, [Steven] Salaita stated that academic freedom remains more of a myth than an actual possibility in modern universities.”–Conor McCarthy, co-organizer of the ‘Freedom of Speech and Higher Education: The case of the academic boycott of Israel’ conference.

Following a report released by Danwatch in January, Denmark’s third largest pension fund, Sampension, moved to exclude four publicly traded companies from their portfolio due to their investments in illegal Israeli settlement activities. Ana Sanchez, speaking on behalf of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, welcomed the move, telling Mondoweiss it represents, “the latest indicator of the mounting pressure on businesses that are deeply complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights to stop profiting from Israel’s military occupation and apartheid.”

Saturday, October 21, Mondoweiss Founder and Co-Editor Phil Weiss will be among several speakers addressing a conference in Minneapolis called “Parallel Liberation Struggles: Lessons in Resistance.” Themes of the conference, organized by a broad coalition of Twin Cities organizations, are the 100-year Palestinian resistance to Israel’s settler-colonial project and the similarities in violence used against Palestinians, African Americans, and Native Americans and their methods of resistance.

California congressman Ted Lieu has had the courage to criticize Trump for bombing Syria and Saudia Arabia for its atrocities in Yemen. But constituent Charlie Zimmerman was disappointed when, in April 2017, he signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 1697, the Israel Anti-Boycott bill. Its provisions clash with the strong support for human rights he otherwise espouses.

The UN is sending letters to 150 companies around the world warning them that they could be added to a database of complicit companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements. U.S. companies that received letters include Caterpillar, Priceline.com, TripAdvisor, and Airbnb. Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, says, “this UN database of companies that are complicit in some of Israel’s human rights violations may augur the beginning of the end of Israel’s criminal impunity.”

Jesse Rubin reports from a standing-room-only event in Brooklyn on free speech and Palestine solidarity in support of Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian poet under house arrest whose case has come to symbolize the absurdity of Israel’s selectively guaranteed right to free speech.

Roger Waters brought his national tour to New York this week. Tonight he is on Long Island, and regrettably the New York media have given a platform to Israel fanatics to smear the songwriter/bassist. Local TV stations have passed on outrageous statements, that Waters is an anti-Semite and that Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is bigoted.

The ADL’s forays into a security relationship with Israel, and backing an anti-boycott law circulating through Congress caught has caught the ire of Jewish community groups and activists who see the organization as favoring pro-Israel advocacy over monitoring anti-Jewish hate groups.

An unidentified group has launched a shadowy website identifying New Yorkers believed to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights—placing their photos, social media links and email addresses on a “blacklist” located at OutlawBDS.com. The list features ninety-seven individuals divided into the categories Campuses, Public & NPOs and Private Sector Activists. Project OutlawBDS claims it was established by a group who “consider themselves to be analytical in their approach to the BDS movement,” whose stated intention is to “provide support for New York State Senate Bill S2492,” the latest attempt to pass anti-BDS legislation in the state.

Jordan BDS thanks the private and public companies in Jordan that have discontinued their contracts with the security company G4S in response to a global boycott call against the company for its role in the Israeli occupation.

Kim Jensen writes: Why do critics of cultural boycotts insist on framing them as a form of censorship, rather than as an invitation to imagine and enact more principled forms of engagement? Are cultural and academic boycotts an effective strategy when some artists and allies may be marginalized in the process? These are the kinds of questions that are explored in a useful new collection of essays, “Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production,” which offers a rich and lively analysis of historical and present-day boycotts and the ethical, political, and practical issues they raise.

American Muslims for Palestine has just posted a great new video on the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate 720, making clear the stakes in this legislation: The US Congress is selling out our right to free speech to the highest bidder, and to lobbyists.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has turned himself into a knot on the Israel Anti Boycott Act. He wants to defend your right to picnic for BDS, but the ACLU says you could go to jail if you tweet support for a UN boycott, under the bill. Katie Miranda reports from senator’s latest town hall, in Tualatin, Oregon.

NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand withdrew her name from a bill to impose penalties on supporting boycott of Israel, and Israel lobby group AIPAC, which drafted the bill, promptly expressed disappointment and targeted her for lobbying campaign

The Israeli Supreme Court backed the state in only permitting Gazan music students to take part in the Jordanian part of a workshop and concerts – not the part in Ramallah. And it piously intoned, “[M]usical development…is not necessarily bound by location”.

“It is alarming that Israel gave a blacklist to a foreign airline, in this case, Lufthansa, who then prohibited the boarding of U.S. passengers in a U.S. airport. Meaning, the Israeli law to ban BDS activists was actually imposed in the U.S., not in Israel,” Eitan Mack writes in FOIA to Israeli government over its actions.

The Anti-Israel Boycott Act was challenged repeatedly at Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Town Hall in the Bronx on Saturday July 22. Gillibrand promised to take another look at the bill, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no vision for peace, and acknowledged that AIPAC has a stranglehold on Congress.

Proponents of law targeting BDS in Massachusetts argue that Israeli companies would leave the state if the legislature fails to pass anti-BDS act. That’s frankly absurd. Israel needs Massachusetts much more than Massachusetts needs Israel.

A new initiative to stifle Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in the Massachusetts legislature is a bill to “Prohibit Discrimination in State Contracts”, arguing that targeting Israel is a form of discrimination aimed at people’s religion and national origin. Opponents showed that this is a facade to hide the anti-free-speech intent of the legislation.

Israel advances a law that will make secret its operations to suppress the movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the law would exempt government agencies from complying with FOIA requests that could reveal its fight against BDS, and its overseas civilian partners that seek to hide their relationship with the Israeli government.